


To Apprehend Air

by Quinara



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Action/Adventure, Community: seasonal_spuffy, F/M, Spike's soul, post-lmptm, season: b7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2017-10-09 11:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quinara/pseuds/Quinara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two days after LMPTM, Spike's soul is stolen.  But that's OK; they can get it back, right?  Simple.  How hard is it to hop dimensions, anyway?  Or storm a castle…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Anaximenes' Arche

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Spring/Summer 2010 round of seasonal_spuffy. Thanks to pj_krystopher for help with the French!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To Anaximenes, air was the first element, where the cosmos began and where it would end, the cause and the result of life. Others disagreed.

The first thing Buffy noticed, coming home, was that the potentials weren't training. She'd come round the back of the house, but there was no one there, the grass and sunshine incongruously undisturbed. She tried not to let it bother her; if Kennedy wanted to slack and pine after Willow while she was away, well, that was her prerogative. It was slightly strange though.

The second thing Buffy noticed, coming in through the door, was Vi not only slacking but drinking a can of Tab – _her_ Tab – in plain view of the whole house, sat at the kitchen table. That bothered her. Pretty badly, actually, because of course that was her life these days: pettiness and casual crime fantasies before patrol and the nightly scramble for the bathroom. So far all of Vi's possessions were being melted in a mental vat of generic cola.

The third thing Buffy noticed, however, once she'd pushed that gratifying image aside, was that Vi looked like she needed the aspartame. The girl was visibly shaken, eyes as wide as a rabbit's above the can, slurping and then jabbering incoherently to Chao Ahn, who patted her free hand.

_"… special cycle, so I can't do it with everyone else's, and it's pretty late in the afternoon now, so I don't understand what the problem is – I mean, yesterday…"_

"What's happened?" Buffy interrupted, immediately snapping her mind under control and scanning the room for weapons. Kitchen knives – always a handy standby. Though, if Andrew had put that First-friendly sacrificial death knife back in the cutlery drawer, he was dead meat. "Is it the First?"

All she'd wanted was one peaceful day, one lonely day, without a single immediate stress to worry about. Robin had still been off work and Giles was avoiding her, so she'd thought her odds were pretty good, but as Vi's expression ran the gamut of fluffy animals from rabbit to puppy to Bambi in the headlights, she knew she might as well have wished for a pet stegosaurus.

Chao Ahn tried to tell her something, jerking her head to Buffy's right. There wasn't anything there though, apart from the basement door and more of their never-ending supply of clutter, ready to topple into actual mess the moment someone ran into the kitchen too fast. "Sorry;" Buffy replied, shaking her head in sympathy at Chao-Ahn's scowl of frustration. "I don't understand… Vi," Buffy looked at the girl again, trying for that expression of firm trustworthiness her mom had always been so good at. Probably failing. "Just tell me what's going on."

A moment passed, and then Vi shook her head, filling Buffy with another flush of feeling, equal parts worry and frustration.

Just then, however, there came a crash from the basement, and everything began to make sense. Especially when it was followed by a barely muffled, _"BUGGERING **FUCK**!"_

OK, Buffy thought. She'd heard Spike swear before, obviously she had, but this amount of rage? It had been a while. "Wait here," she told Vi and Chao Ahn, unnecessarily. Then, with the slightest itching of nerves, she made her way down to the basement, leaving sunny surfaces for the cool wannabe-dank.

The crash had been Spike's bed, from what she could tell, kicked onto its side against the wall, the fluorescent light catching on the now-mangled frame. The vamp himself was shirtless and sockless, pacing – no, _prowling_ – back and forth across the floor, head bowed and fists clenched as he muttered more curses.

There was something to be said about waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but she wasn't going to say it. Not yet anyway. It was always best to keep a joke up your sleeve for the _real_ badness.

"What're you doing here?" Spike growled as he noticed her, still moving but distractedly so, shooting glares.

_Don't even try that, buster._ "What're _you_ doing?"

Nostrils flaring, he snapped, "Told the little bird was down here before – not receiving guests at the moment." Another glare, before turning away from her to prowl again. "Piss off."

"Spike," she said shortly, crossing her arms. She was approaching seriously cranky on the Willow Scale.

Abruptly he rocked back on one foot and stalked towards her, pointing an arm up the way she'd come. "Go back to your mates, Slayer – Spike's having his thinking time." As his eyes met hers she could tell something more was going on than a weird, post-trigger mood swing, but she couldn't tell exactly what. "I mean it," he added, though she wasn't sure he did. "No normal household comes into the basement this much." He span away, pacing once more. "Leave me alone for a bit, yeah, and I'll have it sorted."

"Have what 'sorted'?" she replied, taking the last step down to floor-level. All he did in response was shake his head, not looking at her even when he came back her way. "Spike?" As the silence grew she began to worry, and she could hear it in her voice as she spoke again, that pinched note she couldn't stand. "What's going on?" No reply. "Tell me and I can help you fix things – was it the First? Did it come back?" Shaking off her anxiety she tried to think rationally through the possibilities. "We knew things were gonna start heating up again, but whatever it said, whatever it told you –"

"Wasn't the First," Spike ground out, his stride seeming to shorten. "Though I'm sure it'll be along to the show soon enough, Thursday night bloody prime time…" At last he let out a strangled laugh, stopping now with his face in his hands.

Giving him a chance to wipe away any angry tears, the bane of her own rages as well as his, Buffy made her way over to the kicked-in cot, righting it easily and bending straight the frame, smoothing the covers back to approximately where they should be. It was weird, the combination of Spike-bed smell and virtuous blue sheets, but it was getting familiar. Or maybe the sheets were just getting less virtuous – after all, the pillow still had blood stains from the great chip-degradation fiasco.

Whatever. Admiring her handiwork, she promptly wrecked it, planting a shoe on the top sheet so she could hop onto the bed and sit with her back against the wall. The structure shook a little, but it felt less like it was about to collapse and more like they were never going to get it folded up again. She knew she was supposed to care more about that than she did.

After maybe a minute of to-ing and fro-ing Spike's pace slowed and he sank onto the bed's edge, head still in his hands and both feet set firmly on the floor. She stared at the tension in his muscles, across his shoulders and up his neck, raising a mental eyebrow that his soul-induced modesty reflex hadn't kicked in to get him dressed, but mostly appreciating the view. In a wholly platonic, partners-against-evil kind of way, of course. "Spike," she said at last, with a sigh. "I'm trying to think of what could have happened while you were sleeping and I'm coming up…" Well, she was coming up bodily fluids, so maybe it was best not to go there. "No one's dead and Vi's foiled attempt at a woollens cycle is pretty low on my list of possible tragedies. What happened?"

He looked at her over his shoulder, glancing at the space beside her before clearly deciding against it. In a second he was back on his feet, standing with no small amount of uncertainty and his right hand unconsciously tracing the tapestry of scars over his heart. "It's like this," he said, jaw clenching as he stared at her knees. "Went to bed and everything was fine – or, well, fine as can be expected, anyway. Wasn't exactly expecting dreams of puppies and moonshine…" She nodded encouragingly, hoping he could see it in his peripheral vision, since she didn't want to break his flow by speaking. "And when I woke up I thought everything was fine too. But it wasn't – cottoned onto that pretty quick. And I can't figure it, you know, till the little laundry robin comes down and I realise…" He trailed off, lapsing back into silence.

With a scoot to bring her up off the bed, Buffy stood in front of him, still watching his fingers trace the First's marks and his own old carvings. Her stomach was churning with the sickness of premonition, so instead of speaking she tried to bring her own hand forward, to take his in reassurance.

However, that didn't go to plan. The moment their fingers touched he flinched, violently stepping away as if burned. A second later he growled, hands clenching into fists, and with a few steps and a turn he was at the opposite wall – faster than she could anticipate he punched it, knuckles smacking into the breeze blocks. "Spike!" she cried out against the crack of bone, rushing over. He was laughing now, slapping the wall with both hands and grazing his palms roughly down the concrete. "Tell me!" Her voice rose with something that felt a lot like panic. "What is going on?"

"Should have known," he muttered, shaking his head. "Should have bloody _known_." Growling he slammed his fists sideways against the wall and all Buffy could do was pray he wasn't adding to the blood already there and on his hands. "Take the chip out, take the trigger out, only one thing left, isn't there? Gotta go for the hat trick, every sodding time…"

And that was when she worked it out.

_No way._

Cold flushed over her; unbidden tears flooded her eyes and her feet took her one step backwards. "Your soul?" she asked, though she barely recognised as her voice, high and young and _not_ who she was anymore. "Your soul's _gone_?"

He'd spun to face her and now he stared, the expression on his face showing more heartbreak than he had a right to feel.

Still Buffy's tears were building and she couldn't help but ask through a gulp, "Was it something I did?"

"No!" he said sharply, eyes wide – before adding, "Or if it was then I don't remember it," quick and defensive as that time they'd made the deal by the police car. Before her life had turned to _complete_ hell and she'd had to run away, all because she'd killed –

Her mind skittered away from that memory, but a flash of clarity came to her. The speed of his voice, the tone; it was like when they'd made that deal against Angelus, who, she forced herself to realise, was _not_ in her basement. This was Spike. Unchipped, unsouled and undoubtedly going to be pissed if she told him she was comparing him to Angel, but not so immediate a threat. She hoped. She prayed.

Her heart was hammering and with a shudder of adrenaline her mood flipped 180. "Did you know this could happen?" she demanded shrilly, wincing as Spike blinked with shock. Really, she needed to pull herself together, but it wasn't happening, and she could feel panic coming fully now.

"No, lo-, Buffy – no!" He floundered and looked like he wanted to hit the wall again, fists curling. "I had a _plan_; I had a bloody _plan_ and it was going to work and I wouldn't feel like this ever –" With a feral growl he turned halfway to the wall, but, before he could smash his knuckles even more to pulp, her hand whipped out and seized his wrist. Her fingers clenched tight. It was like she could feel every bone, every strand of muscle and tendon straining, the non-pulsing vampire blood that still was shifting round his system, ready to be spilled by his own self-destructive stupidity. It felt like Spike's wrist, Spike as he'd always been. She could let that anchor her, right?

Again he looked her way and she could accept how crushed he had to feel. Silence and stillness seemed to settle her snap-change jumble of emotions and at last she blinked her tears away, raising her chin as they ran down her cheeks, unashamed. Who could have done this? she thought furiously, weighing up the fear in his eyes. It seemed more like a punishment than anything else. A strange, ironic punishment, but a punishment nonetheless.

The question was, what enemies did Spike have _now_ that wouldn't have done this six months ago? Apart from –

Oh, god.

It seemed obvious.

"Spike," she said, the calm of purpose flooding through her. She didn't want to think it was possible, but there were time for questions after – after other questions. "You have to excuse me for a moment." He looked nonplussed as she gave him back his hand, pushing his wrist gently against his chest and letting her fingertips linger for only a moment on his skin. "There's something I need to check upstairs."

The calm was an illusion, a total fairground magic trick, and she realised this the moment she started moving, storming up out of the basement and into the kitchen. Anger surged through her, closing off her vision. There was no calm, not anymore; just white-hot, disbelieving fury.

The floor vanished beneath her stride and she was in the living room, carpet and couch, target acquired and –

SLAM. Giles was up against the wall. His tea went flying and people were screaming, but her eyes zeroed in on him. She loved him, so her hand was on his chest, not his throat, but the voice that came out of her mouth was the one that belonged in her weapon bag. "What did you do?"

"Buffy?" Beady eyes behind glasses were pleading with her, confused. Scared.

She shoved again. "_What did you do?_" Part of her had been expecting something like this, had been on edge for days.

The old man coughed, and she knew if she pushed harder she could break ribs. But then there was a body against her back, strong hands around her forearms pulling down and dragging her backwards. The grip on the left was slick with something sticky. "Christ, Buffy," came the growling voice in her ear. "Even Rupert's not that _stupid_." Unexpectedly then a heel jabbed the front of her ankle, tripping her and forcing all three of them to collapse away from the wall.

Now all she could hear was the sound of Giles wheezing, loud against the sudden silence of the inevitably full room. Her arms had thin smudges of Spike's blood on them, brown-red marks on her skin, and they were shaking. "I told you to stay in the basement," she snapped at Spike, focusing on all the annoyance she could summon because of that. Even if she hadn't, had she? Whatever; she couldn't _think_; she couldn't even remember running up the stairs. They were upstairs now, right?

"Fat lot of good I was doing down there," Spike grumbled, scowling and resilient beneath the eyes of others, still shirtless with his hands covered in smears and crusting rivulets of blood. It took a moment for her to remember the wall-punching.

"What's going on, Buffy?" came Dawn's voice, full of worry.

"Yeah," added Xander. "And what's Giles got to do with it?"

"Giles has nothing to do with it," answered the man himself, between coughs. "I'm more than aware of the – eggshells beneath my feet, so I assure you I've been – keeping my – 'doing' with things to the absolute minimum."

There were too many voices, so she squeezed her eyes shut, slightly worried she was about to cry again. The facts were beginning to resurface in her mind. She had a vampire in the house with no chip and – oh, God, she was actually going to think it – no soul, _no soul_, with nowhere where she could put him except manacles or the sunshine, neither of which she wanted to do.

Of the two people she could think of with a motive, one clearly had no idea what was going on and the other was somewhere not here and probably still up to his eyeballs in pain meds – and showed all signs of having no magical prowess at all. Not to mention that, in the harsh light of day – or filtered sunshine at least – 'teach Buffy a lesson by taking her vampire's soul away' seemed more foolhardy and cruel than either Giles or Robin were capable of.

Crap. So much for trying to maintain a working relationship with her watcher…

Who could have done this? she thought, promising herself she'd be embarrassed later. The First had the power, maybe, but the motive was sketchy; soulless vampires, as a rule, had nothing to lose, so sending them insane was tricky. She was also fairly sure the First had more interest in souls-gone-bad than demons without them, because otherwise there were bigger fish to fry than Spike. Rationally this made no sense with the enemies that she had, which meant there was someone new on the horizon. Which was, honestly, freaking unnecessary.

And, dammit, _dammit_, Willow was still in LA.

Taking a deep breath, Buffy came back to the world. The living room was full of people, expressions a mixture of fear, worry and mocking incredulity – though that last one was mostly Kennedy. Dawn was frowning with concentration, probably about three minutes from working out the whole situation on her own. Andrew was eating a snack. Xander looked like he wanted one.

Eventually her eyes landed on Spike's. She wasn't sure what she expected to see in them, but he still would only look like Spike to her, gutted but stubborn, which was either going to make this whole situation much, much easier, or rip her heart out and make her eat the aorta. If someone could toss the coin already, that would be helpful.

He took pity on her, dropping his head to one side. "Fancy I share with the class?" he asked, arms crossing defensively over his chest, blood catching on scars. "Know where I'm headed, don't worry, but they probably deserve to know why I'm in chains again."

That caused another flurry of whispers, which both she and Spike took a moment to let settle. Of course, that was when Dawn decided to pick up on whatever difference there had to be that Buffy couldn't see. "Oh," she said and they both stared at her. Her eyes were as wide as saucers. "No way." She shook her head. "Nuh uh."

In the silence after that Spike swallowed, and Buffy watched him shrink into himself. But then, with a swell of demonic confidence, he stood tall once more, hands on his hips as he eyed down a wary Giles. A quick snort of breath and then he spoke, quick and to the point. "Some bastard stole my soul. If the gang could get their heads together and nick it back, it'd be much appreciated. Ta."

No one seemed to know how to react, not that Buffy could blame them; she suddenly found herself trying to hold back a smile, for some reason. With a nod in her direction, Spike took the opportunity to retreat, walking soundlessly past a group of shrugging Latina potentials, into the kitchen and then down to the basement once more.

Buffy turned back to Giles, who looked like he was about to keel over. "I'm – sorry," she said. "Giles, I'm sorry."

She felt ashamed to have leapt to conclusions. She felt anxious that she'd messed this up. She felt a dozen things, dark and miserable, all of them still husting for dominance, yet the strangest feeling of all, she now realised, distracting her from sincerity and filling her mind with Spike's face, sane and so lacking in cruelty, was _pride_. Enough to make her want to laugh.

* * *

She got the gang on it. An unfair biographer would probably describe it much less casually than that ('ordered' would probably get in there somewhere), but Buffy had long stopped caring about the history books.

The thing was, she meant to research with them, honestly she did, but within five minutes of reading she became so restless that the words wouldn't sit straight on the page. Her muscles had minds of their own and she left for the basement, the flimsiest excuse of 'watching him' barely more than a murmur from her lips.

Still restless when she'd descended the stairs, she did exercises and punched the bag, working out for a long time while Spike watched her from her cot, not saying anything. His eyes were haunted, but lazy, and enjoying the view with a set of such contradictory reactions to her that it shouldn't have been allowed. Under his gaze Buffy found herself kicking just a stretch higher, taking more pleasure in her punches, stepping faster in her footwork – not that she was _trying_ to put on a show, but the urge to impress was there. Who didn't want to impress their enemy-cum-colleague-cum-most recent romantic partner?

Eventually her movements slowed and she stood at rest, muscles loose and soft with endorphins in such a way that let the silence seep into her bones. With something that felt like inevitability she sat down with Spike on the cot, staring into gloom or at his shoulder, arms, chest, hands…

In the end she just asked, trying to read his face, "How does it feel?"

And he told her, "Bloody awful."

For a moment that was enough and Buffy nodded. However, the question wouldn't go away. "Really?"

Spike sighed. Then, closing his eyes for a second, he continued, confiding in a near-whisper because that was what they did these days, "The guilt was easier, you know? I think it was." His hands were still bloody in the manacles. "Bit overwhelming, at times, and about all these people I thought I'd forgotten, but easier, yeah, definitely."

She wasn't sure she believed it, but, drawing her knee close to her chest, she found she had to ask, "Why?"

"Because…" He looked at her for a moment, eyes crinkling as he concentrated on her face. She was struck by the thought that this, this burgeoning conversation, it felt like a strange and somewhat ugly gift: something she wasn't sure she'd wanted, but something she'd never thought she'd get. Listening to him speak was like fingering the insides of a Magic 8-Ball; he said, "Believe me, no human language has words for what I feel now, no way of describing it. What I did – " Pausing, he sucked in a breath and she clutched her leg more tightly. "Christ, Buffy, compared to what I wanted, for us – for _you_ – that was _never_…"

His voice trailed off and she nodded, accepting his lack of words. She wanted so badly to leave it there, and she knew he accepted that she didn't owe him anything verbalised, but there was one thing she had to articulate about that whole horrible incident, if only for herself. "If I thought your intentions matched your – what you did – I would never have let you back in my house. You'd be dust in the school basement." She had to believe that.

First Spike nodded, with a certain sense of gratitude. "I'm sorry –" But then his head rocked back against the wall, thumping forcefully as his fists clenched. "_This_, this is the bloody pisser – because I _am_ sorry, Buffy, I'm – I _know_ I'm sorry, but, now? Sitting here? I can't feel it right. It's not in there."

"What do you feel?" Buffy asked quietly, wanting to know. Watching him like this, his whole body tense against the wall, her mind was strangely calm. Last year felt like another country these days, somewhere she remembered but incomparably different to where she was living now, her memory coloured by the knowledge that she could never physically remember every detail. The idea of sitting with Spike in her basement, the gang all upstairs, it would have seemed crazy to her old self, as crazy as popping Spike's jeans like a Twinkie wrapper did now. Sitting here with this version of him, after _everything_, it seemed easy to talk about feelings. She wished she knew if that was good or not. "Is it, like, just a thought, or…"

"No," he replied in an equally quiet voice, strained and forceful though his words were. "It's everything – everything but being actually _sorry_. It's horror and it's anger, rage, you know, all against myself. Dulled a bit over the year, but it's still there, boiling up and pounding and driving me out of my skull." It was almost like she could see it, in the shadows clouding the blue of his eyes. "Can't deal with it now; I couldn't stand it then." He laughed shortly, remembering as he looked away. "In the time between – I wanted to destroy myself, crawl out of my brain and rip me up from the outside. Get torn apart."

Two tears pricked Buffy's eyes as she took it all in. "You got your soul back as… Punishment?" That felt wrong somehow. The soul was important to her, she could admit that, be proud of it, but Spike's quest for it was important too. The idea that it was, well, a self-imposed version of the curse? That hurt. _This_ was supposed to be the bad state. _This_ was supposed to be the curse.

Again Spike's eyes returned to hers. She knew her face was begging him to lie, say he hadn't been trying to punish himself, but he wasn't going to do it. "Yeah," he replied, making her heart sink. "That was part of it. Part of the reason why I got it." He winced, she imagined in response to her as she paled. "I'm not a noble vampire, Buffy, not even close." His words didn't sound true though, not as he continued so earnestly, "I wanted to do something you'd want, take vengeance on myself on your behalf. The soul was the best thing I could think of – didn't think much beyond that."

The irony was that his eyes looked as soulful as ever, filled with that ugly desire to end it all she'd seen back in the church, that same expression she'd stared at for months in the mirror.

She'd managed to leave that time behind, in the end, but now she wondered whether Spike ever had.

And, wow, did that thought seem callous now that she actually thought it. Of course he'd just get over getting his soul back! Completely redefine your position on the metaphysical spectrum? No big, really. Absolutely no problem at all…

"Pain works in a different way," she found herself saying, keeping her sarcasm to herself. "For you, right, without the soul?" Considering the pain was caused by what he'd done to her, she couldn't work out whether she even wanted to console him, let alone how she should go about doing it. She wanted to understand though. "It's not the same – but it's there."

Spike snorted, apparently picking up on her irony anyway: "'Not the same' being the pertinent bit of that little description." He stared down, looking once again at the chains on his wrists. "It's all selfish, useless stuff, these feelings I have. Can't believe they got me as far as they did."

That wasn't right. "But they did," she insisted, meeting his frown as his head jerked up. "They got you a long way, got you working for good, got you the soul…" She wracked her mind, not sure where she was going with this, but the urge to defend Spike against himself was rising as strongly as it had done before he'd been kidnapped. Maybe it was something the basement did to her – the dank did make her feel righteous. "The whole saga with Glory, you were there. That wasn't selfish, not all of it, it couldn't have been when you were putting your life on the line. And everything you did after that, for – Dawn and the others?"

She rocked forward onto the floor, drawing his gaze to follow her as she paced in front of the cot. The fact she'd picked up the thinking-better-while-moving habit from him was probably disturbing, but she was on the edge of something here, she could tell. "Maybe you hate yourself now," she considered, "and maybe you _should_ hate yourself a little bit – but that hate, that's important, that's…" Spinning round, she pointed a finger in his surprised face, remembering something. "You told me you never hated yourself!" she accused, with a sharp jolt of conviction. "Before Christmas, you stood there and you _told_ me you never hated yourself!"

Caught out, Spike shrugged, mumbling something and looking down at the sheets. Apparently the soul actually made him a better liar.

"Newsflash, Spike," she interrupted, putting her hands on her hips and stared down his frown of defiance. Hello, epiphany, nice to see you again. "Hating yourself for not hating yourself enough, or not feeling enough guilt, or not feeling the right amount of feelings or however you want to classify it? That stuff _still counts_. And when you get your soul back I'm going to make sure you know it and I'm gonna make sure you remember everything you were capable of like this. And I'm gonna make sure you know it now, because – dammit, I'm not helping you get your soul back if it's just a way to _kill yourself_!"

Her heart was beating furiously, incongruous as Spike stared back in shock. Seconds passed.

"Bloody hell," he muttered eventually, eyes rolling to the ceiling as a smile flickered across his lips. He looked delighted. Clearly, admitting that she wanted him alive, even soulless, was pretty high on the admission-scale.

"Well, I'm not," she stammered, trying to explain. "It's – ooky." She felt like she'd had this conversation before somewhere, but she couldn't work out when it might have been. "Soulful-you may not agree, and you-you probably don't either, but my duty ends with making sure you help us fight the First. There's no reason I _have_ to help you get it back." She could ignore the fear in her stomach that he would never have a soul again; it would be difficult, but she could do it. Maybe.

He raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

"OK," she admitted, regaining composure. "Yes. I want you to have a soul. Sue me; I like souls. They're reassuring, in the most part." After a moment's decision she sat back down on the bed, taking his hand in hers and clutching it to prove her earnestness. "But, Spike, I want _you_ to want it." Maybe that was too much to ask, but she had to ask it; it didn't feel right otherwise. "I don't want it to be a curse – I mean, they never end well."

Now he smiled fully, obviously touched as he squeezed her hand in return. Comfortable silence fell and she smiled back.

It was weird that this was happening now, after all of Giles' intimations about her and Spike, when she'd been beginning to accept just how important to her Spike was. She didn't want him gone and she was beyond grateful that he pulled his weight enough to let her stand against Giles and Robin. Thing was, she'd mostly put that down to the soul – yet here they were, having what qualified these days as major physical contact, despite there being only one soul between them. More than that, she felt pretty good about it. What the hell did that mean?

"So we're heading out after sunset?" Spike asked eventually, relaxing his hold on her hand and settling back against the wall. He looked calmer now, almost peaceful.

"Yeah, if you want to," Buffy replied, looking at her watch. That gave them half an hour. "Did you make your decision that quickly?"

She was incredulous, but he shrugged, clanking his obviously unnecessary chains. "Not much to decide. Went after the soul as an all-or-nothing deal; this chance to reconsider doesn't change that." Looking at her, his face was filled with barely suppressed awe and, god help her, a not unimpressive amount of love. "I can't tell you what it means," he continued, "that you care what I want. But this isn't me, not anymore." He swallowed and twisted his wrists in his manacles. "This is a spell making me something else. Temporary regression."

Taking the key to his restraints out of her pocket, a constant presence she didn't feel the loss of, she slipped it into his hand and promised, "We'll get it back." Because, really, what else could she say?

He closed his fist around the key and nodded, the tears in his eyes matching her own.

* * *

She came back upstairs to an argument, and Giles' agitated voice filtering through to the kitchen. "I understand that, Xander!" he said. "But the truth remains that Buffy's life until this point has been defined by the fact it _should be_ her own; she _should_ have been free from the constraints the council and world wanted to put on her." The potentials were outside, belatedly being boot-camped in the slowly dimming sunshine; she edged closer to the living room. "What I have been trying to stress these last few weeks is that it we _cannot_ do things her way any longer. The council is gone; we are all these girls have, and they are the hope of the future. She is the adult now and they are the priority, not – not _anybody's_ social life. And certainly not Spike."

She paused in the doorway, not wanting to announce her presence until she'd at least heard Xander's reply. It was odd, looking at them all sitting around a table without her, and the strange thought crossed her mind that this was probably how Dawn had felt two years ago, that the only way of hearing what the Scoobies really thought was by eavesdropping. Though, if they saw her, she wasn't going to hide. She still owned this house, last time she checked the mortgage payment.

Of course Xander obliged her, shifting a book with a resolute ga-thunk. "And what I'm trying to tell you, Giles, is that _you're not helping_." He pushed his fingers through his hair with a sigh. "How do you think it looks, you constantly undercutting Buffy's decisions? Stressing her out to the point she thinks you wanna make things _more_ wrong? Most of the girls don't speak English, so it's not like they really understand what's going on. All they see is the person who's supposed to look after them being told she's not doing it right." Shaking his head, he continued, "I don't want to get all 'hearts and minds' here, but as veteran doughnut boy I know a few things about morale."

Dawn continued his point with a soft, detached sincerity, "If one of us lost our soul, started running around all ethics-free? We'd make it our priority. You know we would."

Watching Giles clean his glasses, frown pronounced, Buffy tensed in anticipation of his declaring Spike was not one of them. It never came, however, and another movement at the table distracted her: Anya turned her way.

For a second their eyes locked and Anya opened her mouth – only to promptly shut it. Buffy stared for a few more seconds, hardly believing it as Anya purposefully looked back to the conversation, pretending she hadn't seen.

Right, gift horse, Buffy thought eventually. No need to count fillings. Taking a breath and rolling her shoulders, she strolled casually into the room. "How's it going, guys?" she asked, and it was like she hadn't heard a thing.

They all jumped, though Anya reacted on a delay. Someone kicked the table hard enough that three Cheetos slipped out of their overfilled bowl. (Andrew quickly picked them up and crunched through the silence.)

No wonder Dawn had always known when something was up. "Guys?" Buffy asked again, trying to sound confused rather than as if she was busting them red-handed. Or red-mouthed, maybe? "Did you find anything?"

"Erm…" Dawn replied quickly, flicking over the pages of her notebook. "Not much." She was scanning the writing as if she were a little too embarrassed to take it in. "Spike's been kind of _here_ for a while now, or at the Bronze, so, um, he hasn't had much opportunity to piss people off this bad..."

"We thought maybe Clem would have some ideas," Xander added, slightly defensively as he glanced at Giles, who was carefully sipping tea – from a different mug to the one Buffy's attack had broken earlier. "I mean, Buff, we can't find much to research here; there's nothing on vampires with souls nayway, let alone ones who lose them again afterwards." He took a breath, looking at her and gesturing at the books and papers on the table, seeming to regain his balance. "Maybe when Will gets back? We don't know where to start."

Buffy joined them at the table and tried to suppress her annoyance at their conversation, letting the news sink in instead. Xander was right, she realised. Yet at the same time, with everything they had on the table, dictionaries and compendiums and demonic travel guides to hell dimensions, she felt like they should be able to do _something_. This was what they did.

"I had an idea," Anya offered, fiddling with a biro between her fingers and staring a little mulishly at the books. "I mean, we're guessing the plan was to throw Spike off-balance, right? Or maybe you?"

"Yeah…" Buffy replied, now unable to catch her eye. Whatever had passed between them before seemed to have faded into indifference once again.

"Well, if we think about this objectively –" Anya's eyes slid to Xander's. "– or at least from a demon perspective, which I know is not 'normal' – this whole situation exudes elegance. Nothing's visibly changed, but nothing's the way it was before: there's so much dormant pain here." At last she looked at Buffy, who was surprised to realise that she didn't just mean in the sense of everyone not Buffy getting their throats ripped out. On the contrary Anya seemed to realise how hard this could have been, just to deal with emotionally. It was _weird_. "It's textbook vengeance work. D'Hoffryn's calling card. Or someone trained by him."

"You think…" Buffy's mind was whirring. "Someone cast a vengeance spell against Spike?" She looked around the table, to a chorus of shrugs.

All apart from Andrew, who interjected, "Or maybe against you. Someone who knew how close you are to Spike would totally think about using him to get to you."

Giles snorted into his tea, drawing the full force of Buffy's attention. She might have reflexively avoided everyone's eyes on that statement, and started blushing, but apparently her anger with Giles was still stronger than embarrassment. "What's that, Giles?" she asked.

His response was a flinty stare and a refusal to back down. He'd probably repeat what he'd said to the others, if he got a chance. "I was merely expressing surprise that _Andrew_ could articulate so clearly the very weakness I have been trying to make you understand."

At her side, Dawn shifted, probably uncomfortable, but Buffy didn't take her eyes from her watcher. "Well, huh," she said, fists clenching under the table as Giles's expression refused to yield. "I was gonna tell you how this whole situation proves that there is _nothing_ to worry about. You'd know that too, if you ever actually spoke to him like a person." Xander coughed, so she conceded, "_Even if_ we still need to fix things, which we do, Spike's committed to this fight – soul or no soul." Now she looked around, meeting everyone's eyes in turn, embarrassment cooling to conviction. "If something new comes up and we have to put this to one side, Spike is still fighting with us. He fought with us against Glory and the chip didn't make him do that; he's fighting with us now."

"I, uh…" Anya began, setting her jaw. Buffy gestured for her to continue. "It might not be about you, not ultimately. Or Spike."

"Oh." OK, maybe she should have stuck with blushing.

"D'Hoffryn wants me dead and Spike stopped one of his assassins…"

"Oh." The table fell silent. "I guess that makes sense too."

No one said anything. Giles rolled his eyes, looking like that was the only thing keeping him from exhausted tears of frustration. Dawn snuck a Cheeto.

"Well, if you're sure about that," Buffy continued at last, scratching her nose as she tried not to feel bad about stressing Giles out (because, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't she more stressed?), "shouldn't we go and find him? Make him take it back?" Anya looked at Xander again, who shrugged. Still Buffy tried to regroup. "Isn't there that dimension, where he lives? Spike and I can go there, and – "

Immediately Giles sighed, interrupting her, "Buffy, this is no time to be haring off into who knows –"

"We can't even be sure if it _was_ D'Hoffryn." That was Dawn.

"And is it even possible?" Xander added, looking incredulous. "Arashmaharr isn't – you can't just mount up with Girl Scout cookies and press the buzzer."

All right, she supposed that was fair. "Anya, couldn't you guide us?" Buffy looked at Anya across the table, but the other woman didn't seem to take the request too kindly, pursing her lips.

"Oh, sure," she replied sarcastically, détente lost again to mutiny as she rolled her eyes. Apparently that request was going too far. "I mean, it's everyone's lives for the team right? The team being you and…"

Tersely Buffy pointed out, "Clearly we need to sort out his vendetta against you anyway, so don't worry about being _too_ selfless."

"Hey, hang on a second," Xander replied, incredulous as Anya scowled. "Buffy, _think_ about what you're asking." He gestured as though he didn't have enough words, using the same incredulous tone he'd spoken to Giles with earlier. "And what you're trying to make us believe! Six months ago – well, you made your feelings about Anya pretty clear; what's so different now?" She winced. "Last time it was all pistols at dawn, but now Spike needs his soul back you decide it's time you and Anya are suddenly best pals?"

Everyone's eyes joined Xander's, sending Buffy up from her chair and onto her feet, staring at her hands on the table's edge as she tried to work out how she could explain. It was _different_, Spike's situation – a whole host of dead bodies was missing, for a start, but she didn't want to base an argument on that. After all, the earth was full of bodies Spike had put there over the last century. She hadn't forgotten. It was the change that mattered, not the lack of killing; it was the soul not the chip. The getting of the soul. "The First," she began at last, in what she hoped were reasonable, measured tones. The First was always a good place to start. "It wants us –" _like this_ "– divided and – disoriented, not trusting anyone on our side."

Yes, she thought, looking up to meet the eyes of her family again. As she continued she spoke to Xander, "Look, I mean; we shouldn't think about our friends above everybody else. I still believe that. None of – our lives aren't more important than the world." Not anymore, she thought, as she avoided her sister's gaze and met Anya's frown. "But, we should still help each other – trust each other. If you want to get Lifetime about it, the thing is, back then with you, Anya – I was wrong. And I'm sorry." Anya's eyebrows rose and Buffy felt a sharp spark of remorse at her shock. She'd been sorry for a while; hadn't Anya realised that? "There's something more important than justice, and that's…" What she was feeling now. "The desire to change, to do right, to be good." Again she looked around the table, staring down a petulant Giles and trying to find the part of him that she knew liked her speeches, even if it spent most of these days buried under stress. "The First is building an army, not only underground, but _here_, where we are. It's making agents out of us, by trying to convince us that we aren't good enough, that there's no point in fighting, that others are giving in. It wants us not to trust anyone but ourselves, so that in the end it doesn't have so much work to do."

Stepping back from the table, Buffy took a moment to glance through to the kitchen, where outside the window she could just make out their supposed army of potentials going through their drills. None of them had known each other before, living separately even if they'd had watchers. It seemed wrong. "You always told me," she continued, on a roll now as she looked again at Dawn and Giles and Xander, "that I couldn't fight alone. Even if that was what the books said, or what the First Slayer told me, that that wasn't how I was strongest." Xander was frowning, as if he could see where she was going and wasn't sure yet where he stood. She argued harder, "Well, you know what? _We_ can't fight alone. As a group we're too small. Evil is everywhere and we're only a small group of… Under-resourced vigilantes in southern California."

Biting her lip, Buffy paused before carrying on, suddenly aware of the tingle on the back of her neck that told her Spike was climbing the basement stairs. "If we want to beat the First's army, we need to start recruiting ours. We can't give up on people, just because it's inconvenient; if the First sets people down the path of evil, we should show them the way back." She was _so_ not meeting Andrew's eyes. He was practically jumping in his chair with self-important glee. "We should trust they have good in them, the way the First trusts they have bad."

It would have been so much easier, Buffy thought, if she liked Anya, but, "That was why I should have helped you, Anya," she said, offering a smile though the other woman's expression was one hundred percent shock. "Not because you're our friend, but because you wanted things to be different. And that – that's amazing." _And that's why we need to help Spike now._

The silence as she finished was heavy, only to be broken by the basement door opening and snicking closed. Spike made his way into the room, coat across his shoulders as he glanced at her and the closed faces of those around the table. "What'd I miss?" he asked, slouching against the doorframe.

"Some first-class speechifying," Xander told him, though whether this was a good or a bad thing he didn't seem to have decided yet.

Bemused, Spike looked at her again, clearly remembering how well some of her other speeches had gone down. She told him, "Anya thinks it could have been that head vengeance honcho guy who took your soul. Or someone who works for him."

"All right then," he replied, shrugging as if to agree that was plausible. "Take it we're not hitting up the Alibi Room?"

"No." She frowned, slightly unnerved by the lack of response from the table. "Or at least…" Maybe they _would_ have to beat up demons to get a portal open.

But then, surprising possibly everyone, Anya spoke up. "I'll take you to Arashmaharr," she said, rising to her feet a little awkwardly. "I mean, I'm a valuable member of the team, right?"

"Anya, you don't have to…" Xander's voice was full of worry, and suddenly Buffy felt horrible for wanting to take his not-a-girlfriend somewhere so obviously dangerous. "D'Hoffryn wants you _dead_."

"I know that, Xander," Anya replied as Buffy glanced again at Spike – he gave her one of those nods that somehow convinced her she wasn't a horrible person. "But Buffy's convoluted speech aside, if Spike had a vengeance spell cast on him because of me, then I owe him my help."

Buffy almost laughed. Mostly out of relief, but also because she really should have realised it could be this simple. She should have realised that Anya might actually _want_ to help.

Hadn't she just heard her speech?


	2. Aether, Born of Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aether, the bright clear air of the upper sky, the air beyond our reach, belongs to a legacy of darkness. He is born of Shadow and of Night, who were in turn born of Chaos.

It didn't take long to set up the circle. Anya mostly still remembered how it was done, even if she needed to look it up to check the specifics, and Andrew had a worrying amount of magical paraphernalia on hand. Once they'd smeared some blue-glowing gunk on Spike's forehead, which proved he _had_ been victim of a vengeance spell, Anya quickly took control of the proceedings.

They sat in a triangle, Amulets of Return round their necks – a hand round the pendant and some sort of vocalisation the only things needed to activate them; very handy. Buffy had a sword and Spike had an axe, while Anya promised she had some paralysing crystals hidden and ready for use, since she was fairly sure her preferred weapon was a skillet, which wasn't useful without the element of surprise anyway.

"Besides," she said. "I'm going with you in an advisory position only; I fully intend to run and hide from as much fighting as possible."

"Anya," Buffy replied, scrunching up her nose. "That makes no sense." They were going on what was essentially a slaying mission – defensive fighting was almost certainly inevitable.

"Well," she conceded, "I also have a knife hidden down my pants. But I nearly always do stabbing wrong, so..."

"Omigod, it's _hard_, right?" Andrew piped up from the corner of the room. Everyone ignored him.

At last, Anya began the spell.

Buffy had experienced enough magic to know that everyone's casting had a different feel to it. Even if she was most familiar by far with Willow's bright and strong approach, the odd spell or meditation she'd done on her own had always been what she'd found most comfortable, and that didn't surprise her. Anya's magic, though, was more disconcerting than she'd anticipated. It was as forthright as might be expected – the world of the basement turning off like a light and the travel through dimensions like stomping up some slightly-too-steep steps – yet at the same time she was struck by the sense of something very, very old. Whenever Willow did a spell on her, it gave Buffy a rush, a spinning sense of awe at the shiny new thing she was uncovering; with Anya Buffy felt like she knew where she was going, like she'd done this journey so many times that she didn't even need to pay attention. It was kind of nice, actually. If dull.

When they arrived, they seemed to appear without any ceremony at all. Yet, as she inhaled, Buffy found herself nonetheless invigorated by the not-cool not-warm air of whatever outside this was. Her house felt so stifling these days, full of people constantly asking her to do things, and as the portal cracked into nothingness behind them she was filled with the strange sense of freedom.

Though, there was possibly something to be said about what she could _do_ with that freedom… "This is _it_?" she asked, looking around at the dissapointingly monotonous scenery.

"This is Arashmaharr," Anya confirmed, brushing dust from her jeans and sounding ever so slightly nervous.

They were on some sort of plain, the ground flat and dirt-like beneath their feet, outside something Buffy thought she should probably call a castle. A wall rose in front of them, curved and constructed from blocks of grey stone, leading up to battlements, while there seemed to be nothing else for miles, just black sky above grey-brown ground, lit by who knew what.

"_This_ is the place where demons are spawned?" Spike commented, casting a glance down the stretch of the wall: it looked like it kept on going, probably in a great long ring. Presumably he was thinking along the same lines as she was, that the place looked like one big hell dimension cliché, and not one that was going to have easy-access.

Anya started walking down the length of the defences and they followed her as she replied, "It's the outside; what do you expect? Demons like to make statements too, you know." It was only now, as Anya trotted along, that Buffy realised that the other woman was wearing really inappropriate shoes, stiletto boots beneath her jeans, leaving a join-the-dots trail in the soft ground. How 2001, she thought, a little enviously. "It's much nicer inside," she continued, "but I couldn't take us there because then D'Hoffryn would have _known_ and we might as well have summoned him to your basement."

"But, Anya," Buffy asked, looking at the wall running as identically before them as it did the way they'd come. "Where are we going?"

"There should be… Aha!" Immediately Anya stopped, running her hands over the stones of the edifice. Her well-manicured hands (curse her) smoothed over the bumps and ridges of grey, feeling the mortar and the edges of rock until, quite suddenly, her hand disappeared up to her wrist, the illusion of stone appearing where it should have been. "It's a good thing it's peacetime," she commented, pulling her hand out and looking over her shoulder. "In the 1500s there was no way in at all."

"What's the point of it now?" Spike asked, looking again over his shoulder at the dimension's empty expanse. "Seems a mite too convenient to be true, if you ask me."

"Principles, Spike, principles." Rolling her eyes at their blank faces, Anya shook her head. "No one wants to live in a prison, so we're allowed to freely come and go into the countryside. And, no," she added, with more than a little exasperation, as if she'd explained this many times before. Buffy had no idea who to. "We can't just teleport… Or they can't just teleport. I couldn't just teleport." For a moment Anya frowned, clearly unsure how she wanted to rephrase her comment, before she let it go. "Arashmaharr is the focus of a vengeance demon's teleportation: we – _they_ 'teleport' from here to Earth, by which I mean, obviously, they cut through a portal, then they come back so they can go to another place – but they can't move from where they started here."

"Anything else we need to know?" Buffy asked, amused and finding herself suddenly – oddly – enjoying being the one without the information. No one ever seemed to have any credible information these days and uncertainty was so _not_ fun in her world.

It seemed that Anya was taking the question seriously, tilting her head to her shoulder and considering it. "We'll blend in fine in the low town, looking like humans – lots of demons can pass and there's always the half-breeds. We're gonna have to sneak into the castle anyway, so…" She smiled, breezily. "No, I don't think so."

Eyebrow raised, Buffy looked at Spike; he looked back and shifted his axe in a way that clearly said, _Low town?_ She shrugged, wondering what exactly they'd let themselves in for, before turning back to Anya and holding up a hand in the direction of the wall. "Then lead on, I guess."

They walked through the wall Harry Potter style, with the illusion giving way to a short passage built through the stone that looked like it wasn't leading anywhere, until they found themselves out of the other end and in…

A _city_. Not a city Buffy recognised – not that she had much experience – but a city nonetheless, with high rise apartments above them faced with fish-grey concrete and covered in what looked like satellite dishes. They stopped before the street corner, where a connected building, covered in rust-coloured panels, projected a dozen signs, Japanese characters running up to the roof in a harmonised glow of neon, yellow and red in the night sky. A proper tarmac road started in front of them, a drain and cigarette ends by her feet by the lamppost where they stood, and a bug-like European city car was parked up the pavement outside a bar on the other side. (It announced it was a bar on the sign; the window was full of French adverts for alcohol. Buffy assumed it was a bar.)

"Welcome to the Earth Quarter," Anya said, smiling at Buffy's stunned expression and peeling off her jacket in the heat that Buffy suddenly realised was warming her face. City heat, on the suggestion of a breeze, like there should be smog above them. It was so unlike the non-climate outside the walls.

"Bloody Narnia, more like," Spike commented, looking up at the lamppost.

"What is this place?" Buffy asked, as a motorbike brummed down the main road at the end of their street. "I was expecting, I dunno, a castle maybe, with some guards. This is…" _Civilisation_. She didn't want to say that though, so she looked helplessly at Spike, who seemed to be taking it in his stride, now peering interestedly at the adverts in the bar's window.

Her eyes sparkling and her shoulders visibly relaxed, Anya replied, "This was where I lived for eleven-hundred years." Wow, she really did look happy to be here. "I mean," she explained, "it's pretty simple really. Vengeance demons were always old money, even when I was younger, and we invest wisely. It's only natural that our world attracts a lot of trade from other dimensionally-transient demons." She was still using 'we', Buffy noticed, wondering whether it should bug her more. It should imply she was dangerous, that her allegiance lay elsewhere than Buffy's camp. But now they were here, Buffy wondered whether it didn't just mean that, to Anya, this place felt like home.

"So where do we go?" Buffy asked, unshouldering her scabbarded sword momentarily and taking off her own jacket, to fold it over her arms.

Again Anya smiled. "We catch up with an actual old friend of mine," she said, crossing the road towards the bar and beckoning them to follow. "Come on!"

Since she'd never left America, Buffy didn't really know what French bars were supposed to look like, but this one seemed nice, if a bit run down. The unassuming doorway led them to a small parlour, with wicker chairs and wooden tables clustered on a tile floor, while the back wall was dominated by the bar proper, built out of beech with matching stools in front of it. It wasn't _busy_, but a couple of bulky blue-grey demons were hunched at the bar, dressed in old man clothes, and one of the tables had a group of guys around it, maybe mid-twenties, on various points of the human/demon spectrum as they smoked, drank and played cards. A fan whirred lazily above their heads and there was a TV in the corner by the door, with a game of what Buffy assumed was demon soccer taking place on a yellow pitch.

"Bonsoir!" came the call from the back of the room, a swing of the kitchen door accompanying the man who walked through it. At least, he looked like a man, in a shirt and slacks with mid-toned (Middle Eastern?) skin and an incongruous haircut of vertical black spikes, framing his face to his shirt collar. Buffy thought they might be spines. "Qu'est-ce que vous prenez?"

It was like high school all over again, and Buffy's mind froze. Spike, the bastard, suddenly seemed in his element, pulling his wallet out of his back pocket as he crossed the floor, to the unoccupied side of the bar. "Bonsoir! Ah; j'ai seulement des dollars américains – c'est un problème?" His voice rumbled round the words, in an accent far better than her own. She was impressed, to say the least. A big least.

The barman said something in return and Spike nodded, flicking his wallet open. "D'accord. Un pastis et un Coca –" For a moment he turned his head over his shoulder, addressing her, "– you don't drink while you're working, do you, love?" She shook her head dumbly and he glanced at Anya. "What you on for, Anya?"

Apparently the ancient and well-travelled members of their party were trying to show Buffy up, because Anya made her request directly to the barman: "Un verre de vin blanc, s'il te plait, Thierritz."

The barman made another remark, sounding surprised, but soon he and Anya were chatting away like the old friends they probably were, Spike paying for the drinks that were soon in front of him before he brought them back across the room. Not knowing what else to do, Buffy took a seat at one of the free tables, accepting her Coke and watching Anya talk animatedly in French, nonchalantly blending in with her surroundings. "She never said she could speak French," she commented to Spike, who sat down opposite her and sipped from his peculiarly yellow drink.

"Ah," he sighed in appreciation. "Haven't had one of these since '55… I doubt you Scoobies ever asked her."

"Huh?" she replied, taking a moment to parse what he'd said. "Oh, yeah, I guess not." With only a slight hesitation she took a sip of her Coke, trying to work out if it tasted funny when it hit her tongue. It was nowhere near as sweet as she was used to, and the fizz felt sharper, if that was possible. The ice and lemon looked OK though, and she'd seen Thierritz, if that was his name, pour it out of a profile bottle from the fridge. Maybe it was imported from somewhere strange. "What about you, though?" she continued, looking up to Spike again. He smirked at her. "When did Mr. Tough Stuff cram his irregular verbs?"

Spike shrugged, looking far too pleased with himself. "Well, if you've been kicking around as long as I have, you tend to pick up a few things."

"Uh huh," Buffy replied, trying to hold back her answering grin. She couldn't help it. Now that the awkward conversing part was out of the way, she was struck by the feeling that she was on holiday somewhere expensive, like the Riviera, sitting on unfamiliar furniture in the back alley they could just about afford, drinking unfamiliar Coke from an unfamiliarly narrow glass, with an unfamiliarly limited amount of ice clacking away inside it. That was probably a bad thing, but part of her didn't care. "What are they talking about?"

After another swig of his drink Spike leaned back on his chair, making a display of listening in to the conversation at the bar, picking out words hidden beneath the other table's hubbub. Such a show-off… "She's trying to pull in a favour to get us snuck into the castle," he said. "Wherever that is. Though now they're going off on a tangent about Marseilles, I think."

She nodded, more than willing to let Anya have her tangents. They were on a schedule, of course they were, but Spike seemed relaxed here, pulling out his cigarettes to light up facing away from the table. _She_ felt relaxed here, like this was the first time she'd sat down in months.

Was this what it was like to get out of Sunnydale?

After a few more moments of chatter – and loud complaints as a hand of cards apparently came to a dissatisfying close – Spike's gaze wandered to the TV. She tried to watch herself, head craned over her shoulder, but sports held even less interest to her than usual when you replaced the pretty men with tentacled slime monsters. "So," she asked Spike's chin, "is France really like this?"

Distractedly Spike dropped his gaze to meet hers. "I suppose so. It's been a while, but you could sell me on it." There was a convenient ash tray on the table between them, into which he tapped the grey end of his cigarette. Look at her – whatever Spike was, being all Euro-chic. Though, did they actually smoke this much in Europe? "Course," he continued, "who knows what's come and gone? Some countries – " His eyes met hers and he shifted in his chair, concentrating now on their conversation. "Some countries, you go away for ten years and you can barely recognise them when you come back."

"Really?" she replied, drinking more of her Coke and finding it not nearly so unsettling now she was halfway down. "How come?"

Spike shrugged. "They change. You change. You forget things you should've remembered and remember what's better forgotten." And just to prove he was really ancient, he smiled wryly. "It's a strange old world."

"When I picture you travelling around," Buffy mused, wondering how carefully she should choose her words. "It's always about the rampaging. I can't imagine you, like, taking in the opera or whatever."

"Well," he replied, taking it fairly evenly with another drag of his cigarette. There was a glint in his eye that suggested he'd picked up on the 'picturing him', but was going to let it go. "For the first twenty years, at least, that's all I wanted to do. I reckon that's all most of the vamps you meet want to do." He shrugged. "After that you realise, no matter how bad you are, people are still gonna be there tomorrow, so you might as well see what else they've got to offer, before you kill them."

"Right." She swallowed, suddenly feeling a little sick, the taste of cigarette smoke stale on her tongue. Casual disregard for human life was not something she missed in Spike. Hell, she'd almost forgotten about it completely.

It wasn't just the callousness, though, it was everything that came with it. It was so – _rage-worthy_ – to realise how much he had to know about the world, how much he could tell her, and still understand that every story would end in a brutal murder. How many bars had he been in like this, appreciating nothing more than the meals it could offer? How many years had he _wasted_, killing and running instead of...

He squinted at her, working out where her thoughts were going. "And, of course, you leave it longer than that and the killing just gets plain dull." For a moment his nostrils flared – he clearly realised his faux pas – and then his expression grew intense. "Look, Slayer, I'm not saying I would've got there without the chip, not saying the fight and the kill don't mean anything to me, because they do, but you know that when I'm not doing anything, sitting here with you, I've no particular urge to kill humans, right? Not with –" Then he clenched his jaw, cutting himself off, which of course she still knew was code for a narrowly avoided confession of affection.

It was time to worry about the present, she realised, not the past. "I get that," she replied earnestly, putting her hands on the table, not so far from his, and lowering her voice. The vampire here in front of her, she realised, may have killed thousands (_millions?_) of people, but all he needed now, to maybe never kill again, was reassurance. And people asked why she wouldn't give up on him. "I do. And I get, even, that if someone pisses you off then you can think through your temper – the chip taught you that."

Of course, it wasn't that easy, could never be that easy. Biting her lip, she paused, allowing her doubts form and shape in her mind as he drank in her expression, wide-eyed. Now that she was out of the house, away from stress and away from – Giles, which it felt like a betrayal to think, but it was true – she could accept that she had some seriously deep-cutting doubts. And that was real issue, wasn't it? In the end, how could she ever fully reassure him, when she spent most of her time desperate for reassurance herself?

With a sigh she continued, "It's the more complicated stuff that I'm scared of." He frowned. "The stuff that doesn't have an easy answer." Like Katrina, she remembered, with a frisson of _something_. "I _can't_ decide that stuff for you." She begged him to understand and he seemed to, tilting his head and squinting as he listened. "I mean," she tried to explain, "saying that I can is like saying that I get it right all the time, which just isn't true. I've – I've only enough conscience for one person, you know?"

Still looking at her intensely, he mulled this over. "Well," he said at last, "moot point anyway, innit? My plans haven't changed." He smiled, a little wickedly. "But, say I get petitioned by two women and a baby in the meantime, you'll give me a consult, yeah?"

The sudden image of King Spike made her snort. _Bloody cut him in two, then, won't we, ladies!_ "Deal," she accepted, raising her glass and breathing a mental sigh of relief. With a nod he clinked his glass against it, and the feeling she was on holiday thankfully returned.

* * *

Later, when Thierritz had closed up shop for the night, he introduced himself to them properly and welcomed them into his little Fiat. No sooner had Buffy climbed into the backseat and carefully fastened her seatbelt, earning a scathing look from Spike sitting next to her, they left the bar's alley and were haring across town. Fast.

When she wasn't looking out of the window, Buffy thought this wasn't too unlike travelling around a city on Earth. It wasn't like LA though, because there was no way this place was built on anything like a grid system. Out of the corner of her eye, the urban grey offset by colours and lights and movement _did_ seem familiar, and the traffic wasn't so strange really, slow up to red lights and then gunning through green with extreme levels of acceleration, but the roads twisted and changed direction all too often, backstreets running in curves way more frequently than straight lines.

"So, um, what's the plan?" Anya asked, turning round from the passenger seat with expectant eyes. "You do have a plan, right?"

Buffy resisted the urge to freeze. She rarely if ever fought with a plan; it was the Buffy Summers School of Winning – don't have a plan, be unpredictable, and then there's no way the enemy will work it out. "Uh," she said. "I think I was just gonna threaten D'Hoffryn till he gives us what we want." It was a strategic lack of forethought, dammit. "I can be pretty scary."

Beside her, Spike snorted, unhelpfully; she poked his leg with the crossbar of her sword. "OK…" Anya replied, unconvinced. "What's Plan B?"

Luckily, Buffy could think on her feet, even while sitting down – hence why her strategy worked. "Well," she asked, "how was it you lost your powers the first time? Didn't bizarro-Giles crush your amulet or something? Can't we do that? There's bound to be something large and heavy around. And… And you said he couldn't teleport, so couldn't we always trap him somewhere he can't get out?" She was imagining a well, for some reason. That could be fun. "He'd be able to come and go, sure, but I bet no one wants to be ruled by a king can't even come to a banquet."

Anya frowned. "I'm not sure D'Hoffryn has an amulet… But," she conceded, turning back to the windscreen. "I'm impressed by your blue skies thinking. He may have a weakness somewhere, at least here on Arashmaharr. We should find it."

Had Anya just paid her a compliment? It felt like it, and the conversation was over far quicker than she'd anticipated. Thankfully Spike took up the silence, leaning into the centre of the car while Thierritz accelerated them around another tight bend. "Didn't you ever hear anything about what he could be weak for?" he asked. "Rumours about the boss, you know – secret love of unicorns or the like?"

OK, Harmony references got you a glare, which she promptly gave him. All that got her, however, was a wink, which was pretty damn sinful from a vampire sat with one leg raised in the air, boot planted against the back Anya's seat. Wearing jeans two sizes too small. Bastard; now she was just holding back a snigger, because he might as well have been wearing that jewellery he thought made him look like a sex god. Tackiness should not be this charming.

"Not that I remember," Anya replied, distracting Buffy from her amusement. "But a lot of people thought I was a suck-up, so they might not have told me."

She couldn't quite imagine it, but maybe becoming human had made Anya more – well, she was going to think assertive rather than annoying, because that was probably fairer. "We'll figure it out," Buffy said. "If there's anything to figure, we'll figure it." She snuck a glance at Spike again; he'd shifted lower in his seat, the poser. "Weaknesses tend to show themselves, one way or another."

Of course, she thought she was being subtle, but he cheerfully agreed, "Too right," and turned his head to look at her with a complete lack of sneakiness. He actually smiled as he took her in, the Buffy-shaped weak spot in the World of Spike.

Now she was getting flustered. Stupid lack of soul.

Stupid weak spot…

* * *

D'Hoffryn's castle was in the centre of the city, pretty much part of the cityscape thought it was up a steep, pronounced incline. As they drew closer the streets became narrower, winding and cobbled as they circled up the hill; but everyone in the car assured Buffy this was perfectly normal, and not actually a new demonic torture designed to make her sick as the car shuddered and bounced around the never-ending bend.

Eventually they found themselves in the service entrance, which looked like it had once been a yard of some sort. Now the sturdy metal-mesh gate was swung open between sandstone posts, and the gravelled space housed a small lorry, from which two devil-red demons in jeans and white t-shirts were unloading metal casks of what Buffy presumed was beer.

They waved at the car as Thierritz brought them to a halt; Anya waved back while Buffy fidgeted with her sword.

Unexpectedly, then, Thierritz turned his head between the front seats and addressed her and Spike in English, glancing at Anya. "They do not know why you are here," he said, his accent thick and a little bit dreamy. "It is best they do not know. Like me they have much to gain from a coup; they will not take the time to make the connection when you have left. But it is best now they do not know."

"Gotcha," Buffy replied, and on her nod the three of them began climbing out of the car. "Thanks," she added to Thierritz before she shut the door. "Merci beaucoup."

He accepted it with a smile and nod, his expression through the window implying that he had no idea what to say to the Slayer. The feeling was more than mutual.

The delivery demons, busy chatting to each other in a language that could have been anything from Sumerian to Valley slang, for all Buffy could make out, essentially ignored them as Thierritz drove away, so they made their way over to the most obvious-looking way in, a big set of double swing-doors, painted dark blue, set in the side of the imposing, multi-hued stone façade of the castle.

"I never really knew what security D'Hoffryn had," Anya commented as they crunched over the gravel and in through the doors, which opened automatically to greet them. Buffy assumed magic, because she couldn't hear electronics. They were so part of some grand scheme of intimidation. "And I guess," Anya continued, "he might have upgraded in the last four years."

"Do you know where we are, at least?" Buffy asked, clutching her scabbard's shoulder strap and looking down the wide corridor. It had utilitarian, pale-painted walls and some sort of synthetic floor, more like they were in a hospital or a dorm than a great demonic castle. It seemed like imtimidation was for outsiders. "And how we can avoid people?"

"Sure," Anya replied, pointing at a gap in the wall covered by grey-looking plastic flaps. "Through there's the kitchen, but dinner was a couple hours ago, I think…" She glanced quickly at her watch. "So there won't be anything going on there now. We'd best keep on this floor as much as possible, 'cause no one ever really comes here but the servants, then we can cut up wherever we want, to find the armoury, or the throne room, or the movie theatre…"

"You have a _theatre_?" Spike asked, senses apparently free from danger as he stood relaxed.

"You have _servants_?" Buffy overrode him, thinking that was more to the point.

Anya blinked. "Sure we do. Vengeance demons have a lot to get done, and D'Hoffryn's been head of the ruling family here since way before I became a demon." Under Buffy's stare she grew defensive. "They get paid! They're nice."

"So…" Again Buffy looked down the unassuming corridor. "All the vengeance demons live here, looking down on the rest of the city. Who, what, serve you stuff in your big European fantasy castle? Who does that?"

"I dunno, love," Spike commented, running his fingernails along the blade of his axe. "Sounds a lot like where I went to university."

"But you're, like, way old and outmoded," Buffy dismissed. Was she being unreasonable about this? She probably should have realised that a castle meant a _castle_, but actually being here felt strange.

"Oi!" Spike's head jerked up, but she just shrugged.

"Look, Buffy." Anya sighed. "I know you don't think much of me, but D'Hoffryn's kind of the _king_. We're kind of in the White House, hiding from the people who run the country." Buffy wasn't sure whether she should raise her eyebrow at that; Anya continued impatiently, "Sure they have servants, and big formal dinners and rival groups who would love power to shift. And movie night. But it's not _evil_, it's just how it works."

But… "Whatever," Buffy replied after a moment, uncertain that demons who worked to bring pain and dismemberment on the human race wouldn't rule demons in the same way, but deciding it didn't really matter in the scheme of saving Spike's soul and Anya's life. Even if Willow or someone probably _would_ have something to say about the evils of hereditary monarchies; she should have gone to that class... "Let's go steal the crown jewels or something."

They set off, Anya in the lead as she tried to orientate herself and remember the map of the floors above, Buffy and Spike all the while probing her for information that could constitute D'Hoffryn's weakness. They saw one demon coming out of an industrial-looking laundry (machines weirdly silent apart from the sound of swishing clothes), but she seemed to accept their appearance and walked by them without a second glance, small basket of clean clothes resting between her head and the two wicked-looking horns jutting up from her spine, through a pair of neat holes in the purple tabard of her uniform. Personal washing after-hours, maybe?

"Where do the amulets come from, anyway?" Spike asked eventually, as they reached the other side of the service-floor. "He get them in gross from the jewellers or what?"

"Oh no," Anya said, looking up a currently-incongruous stone spiral staircase. "They get made in the demonification ritual." She smiled nostalgically, and Buffy thought it was a bit like when people talked about graduation. "D'Hoffryn chips a shard from the Gaffrynotz Crystal and holds it out, and then you put your hands in the gold, accept the crystal and say the prayer. It's a very personal experience."

Buffy looked at Spike; he looked at her. "Gaffrynotz Crystal?" she asked.

"It's so beautiful," Anya told them wistfully. "It hangs right next to D'Hoffryn's throne, all glowy and green... I think the name means 'crystal-souce of great power', but I'm not so hot on the old tongue – I guess it might be one of those 'PIN number' things to call it the Gaffrynotz Crystal, but everybody does, so…"

Spike shifted in preparation to interrupt, and Buffy bit back her own words, because she assumed he was going to point out how obviously useful this information would have been to have before. What he actually said, however, was, "Company's coming." Abruptly his eyes met hers again, putting her immediately on alert, sword out of its scabbard. "Loud and stompy company." They both looked at Anya, who did not look ready in the least. Spike pointed out, "You might want to get away from the stairs."

Nervous and silent now, Anya nodded and scurried behind them, brandishing her pouch of crystals.

"How far?" Buffy muttered, not wasting energy by heaving her sword up, but with both hands firm on the hilt as she let the tip rest on the floor.

Axe resting against his shoulder, Spike judged for a moment, before replying. "Couple of flights, maybe."

There was a chance they weren't coming for them, then. She doubted it though.

Moments like this, before a fight, were always surreal. Usually they were over before you could get a good thought going, so Buffy didn't try to plan any moves, even as she let her peripheral vision take in the distances between the walls, the focus of Spike and Anya's respective fight-and-flight responses, the directions in which she could anticipate them moving.

They could run back down the corridors, she realised, to find a different venue for the fight. But this was as good as any, really, and if they could know they had the trouble _behind_ them when they got upstairs they'd be off and rolling.

The spiral staircase was narrow, so the first demon, when it came, was fed to them like water from a tap. Immediately on seeing its feet appear Buffy skipped three steps forward and lunged. Her sword hit chest, cut through metal armour into flesh and bone, but the impact jarred up her arm. Still, when she retreated the demon fell to the floor, bleeding black; it looked like an orc from the Lord of the Rings films, but with a better outfit. Freaking livery, it looked like – purple and gold. Did those colours still mean something here?

More demons appeared behind the corpse and Buffy had to toss her sword to her left hand, just to give her right a few seconds to stop shaking. She sent a quick thought of thanks to non-sulking Giles of Old, and his insistence on ambidextrous training. Of course, the armoured orc-things had swords of their own, so now surprise was gone it was like a proper mêlée, building up a defensive wall of sword slashes and ducking and weaving to negotiate the confined space. Spike was at her side and Anya, for the moment, was still behind them as she footworked into the corridor, parry-step-slicing deep into the leg of another demon so he fell to get trampled by his friends.

"How many of them are there?" Buffy shouted, wishing she were taller, to see past the immediate two ranks she was currently engaged with. Still, she could see one demon trying to flank them, so with a side-step she tossed her sword back into her right hand, quick as a flash arcing the blade past faces, dropping back to slip her sword past the would-be flanker's parry, held in front of his own head, and then stabbing into the other side of his neck on the backswing, pivoting the blade across his throat to block the other swords jabbing towards her left.

Bodies should never work as sandbags, she thought as she stepped back to Spike's side, and yet they funnelled paths so well: as the corpses fell the breadth of their respective lines evened out, with no ground to purchase other than that in front of them. She could begin working _with_ Spike in earnest, finishing off his axe swings with a stab for those who mis-stepped, relying on him to close up the gaps in some of her more rough and ready attacks. The admonitions amongst the growls and yelling – "Watch it, Slayer!" and "Bloody _line_!" – well, they were inevitable. But they were welcome.

It was funny; she was almost certain she and Spike had never been in this sort of fight before – the Knights of Byzantium, maybe? No, none of those quarters had ever been this close – but they were doing just fine. Better than fine, in fact, because even if her denim jacket _did_ look like a bad customisation job, slash gashed up the sleeve by a lucky orc, she didn't feel like she was bleeding. Adrenaline would probably be masking any pain, but, hey, they were impressive.

Still, they were steadily moving backwards and the crowd didn't seem to be thinning. An alarm was ringing, somewhere, loudly, and it was only a matter of time before a higher-up with a brain worked out where they were and sent more guards in to pincer them. They needed to find another stairwell and get upstairs.

"Guys!" Anya suddenly shouted over their shoulders, just when Buffy and Spike dropped demons across the full corridor's width. "_NOW!_" As she yelled she pitched three crystals into group of snarling guards; Buffy could see them, twinkling through strip light. Not waiting for a moment she jumped back, turned and sprinted, ears full of Spike and Anya's clattering footsteps behind her.

In the seconds it took for the demons to react and follow over the obstacles, one of them, some of them, stepped on the crystals. They had to have done; there was a crack like thunder and gold light flushed down the corridor's walls. The clamour they were making ceased in a moment and Buffy skidded to a stop so she could look back. Panting, she stared at the now-frozen crowd, swords raised, feet set in pursuit, completely blocking the corridor.

The alarm, unfortunately, clanged on.

"Upstairs," she half asked, half demanded, looking at the others for assent. "Throne room. He'll go to his power; he needs to keep it safe."

"Right," Spike accepted, nostrils flared

"OK." Anya nodded, breathing desperately and squeezing her eyes shut as she clearly tried to get herself together. "OK!" she said again, opening her eyes and setting off at a run so they could follow.

They were already tired, but they stumbled back past the laundry and let momentum push them up another set of stairs, standard-issue flights back and forth this time. Abruptly the plasticky flooring gave way to exquisite wood; the smell of soap morphed, giving way to something refined and old, and the stairs they were running up were a curved, sweeping staircase from a hall, vases of flowers in alcoves by their sides. They hit the second storey, alarm still ringing, and their feet were thudding across a tiled floor, pristine white and palatial.

Unerringly, though her run on kitten-heels listed to one side, Anya guided them off the landing and into an antechamber, then through an ornate and ancient-looking pair of double doors, into the throne room.

D'Hoffryn was there, alone, standing on the floor below a wooden dais and looking into what Buffy wanted to call a birdbath, or a font, but knew was probably a scrying pool.

"What in all the hells…?" he asked as she rushed him and then, in a second as he waved his hand, her feet left the floor and she was suspended in mid-air.

Crap.

_Crap._

She couldn't move, even as she tried, was fixed in air; couldn't reach her amulet and take herself home.

She could only imagine it was the same for Anya and Spike.

Super-double-extra-freaking fucking _crap_.

"Well, isn't this a surprise?" D'Hoffryn said. He looked at her quite confused for a moment, before pressing a hand to the side of the birdbath's bowl. The alarm abruptly ceased. They could be grateful for that at least… "I'd been expecting an army of insurgents."

"I think I'm offended," Buffy snarked, though feeling a little like she was. But at least her voice worked; that was another thing for the pro column. She could work with that.

She wasn't immediately sure how, though, so for a few seconds there was silence. D'Hoffryn moved to the wall and muttered into what Buffy assumed was a magical intercom, while she took the chance to look around. It was all very medieval: wooden floor and stone walls and chandeliers with actual candles dripping wax not that far away from where she was held. They were kind of warm.

The most impressive feature of the room, though, was what had to be Anya's Gaffrynotz Crystal. It seemed to grow from the ceiling itself, vaulted stone becoming opaque alabaster growing more translucent as it descended like a stalactite, that translucence bringing a green colour, like emerald, until, by the ornate golden throne on the dais, it descended, gem-like and glowing, to a ragged point.

It was very pretty.

D'Hoffryn cleared his throat, drawing her intention back to him. "In the name of almighty Grothnar, what are you doing here?" he asked, looking irritated and yet perplexed.

"Uh…" Buffy said, not sure what to say if he wasn't up to speed.

And then, suddenly, "It was me," came Anya's voice behind her, quavering slightly. "I, uh, brought them."

"_Anyanka?_" D'Hoffryn asked, looking past Buffy's feet as her mind began to race. Very quickly.

_What_ was Anya saying? This was a trick, right, a ploy? Right? This was Anya being quick-witted, pulling her weight the way she'd always said she'd wanted to do. Oh, it had better be…

"Yeah," Anya replied. There was a light thump after D'Hoffryn waved a hand in her direction; presumably that meant she was back on the floor. "I, uh, heard that you were trying to kill me. Sub-contracted, even. You probably gave me over to a task force, right, didn't want to micromanage something so unimportant…" She walked forward, under Buffy's feet, approaching D'Hoffryn at the scrying bowl. "Well, I, um, brought a trade. Yeah. The Slayer and William the Bloody for – "

"It's bloody _Spike_, you traitorous bint!"

OK, Buffy thought. She could parse Spike's voice; there was no need to panic. He didn't believe this, was playing up to their crowd of one. Even if he _was_ annoyed about the name thing. He was always annoyed about that.

Anya laughed, nervous and strangled-sounding as D'Hoffryn frowned, casting an askance glance to Spike, behind Buffy in the air. He asked Anya in a stage whisper, "Wasn't he insane?"

Then Anya's laugh became a little pathetic. "Oh, sure, um, I took his soul away as well." There was a chance, though, wasn't there? There was a chance that Anya's nerves weren't about playing up to D'Hoffryn, but because she'd betrayed them both. That wasn't impossible. "To put them both off balance, you know. And give them a reason to come."

Oh… Anya would have known that, wouldn't she? Her weak spot. Her as in Buffy Summers, Spike Protector. She didn't have many distractions these days.

_No_, Buffy forced herself to think, it was never good to underestimate the power of coincidence. Anyway, Anya was in retail – or used to be. She was good at working situations.

"Anyanka…" D'Hoffryn whistled, glancing up at their suspended forms with an impressed smile on his face. Buffy remembered what Anya had said that evening, about it being such good vengeance work. "I have to say, I'm impressed. If you hadn't proved yourself so much a liability…"

"I know," Anya replied, sounding genuinely wistful. She put her hands in her pockets, looking forlorn, but calm, so much calmer than before.

There was a split-second moment in time when Buffy stopped trusting her. It all seemed to fall into place, that she'd been stitched up, that Spike had been stitched up, because to an unrepentant ex-demon like Anya they were always going to be expendable. She felt her heart break that this was the end, felt so full of anger she thought she was about to combust.

It was that moment, of course, when Anya pulled a crystal out of her pocket.

"This is for Hallie, you _bastard_," she said, then dropped and stamped.

They froze and Buffy was falling, spell broken. Spike thumped to the floor behind her.

She would be ashamed later – she would be so ashamed and sorry and grovelling and grateful _later_ – because she had a sword and a power centre to destroy.

The Gaffrynotz loomed large before her eyes as she ran forwards, past D'Hoffryn and Anya paralysed in their conference, up stairs to the dais. It consumed her vision, glowing green and pulsing with an old, old light. Maybe D'Hoffryn didn't have an amulet, but he made others amulets out of this, bound their power to him as she presumed his power was bound in turn to the original source.

Summoning all her anger against herself, against whatever poorly-supervised team had been in charge of killing Anya, Buffy thrust her sword into the centre of crystal, forcing her arm forward with every ounce of strength she possessed. Magic, Willow had told her long ago, weakened the physical structure of anything that housed it; it was energy in the end, supernatural or not, and it made molecules move faster, irregularly to the point where solids would fracture or melt, liquids would froth and bubble. Wands could be snapped, solid quartz could be crushed under a heel – and, so it seemed, with enough effort, glowing crystal, millennia old, could splinter like glass.

The glow leaked out as the crystal shattered, swelling around her sword blade before dissipating, suddenly, with a brilliant flash of emerald green.

"Oh, nice – _CHRIST_," Spike cried behind her. "Oh, _God_." She turned to see him fall, axe clattering to the floor.

The soul.

With a leap she left the dais, the destabilised roof not sounding all too good, and grabbed the paralysed Anya under one arm. Flying with her to the floor she touched Spike's trembling face, his shoulder, his hand – brought that hand up to his amulet, closed her eyes and muttered, because nothing else would come to her, "There's no place like home."


	3. The Empty Scales of Libra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A balance has no inherent measurement of its own: everything must be weighed against something else.

The three of them, connected, shot back through dimensions, the athleticism Buffy recognised as her own magic pulling them to land in a tangled heap on her basement floor.

"You're ba – Anya!" came the cry from Xander, as he took one of the bodies from Buffy's arms. "Oh god, she got hit by her thing, right? It wears off, doesn't it? Anya! Anya!" He was clicking fingers, like he was trying to attract her attention.

His voice faded, however, as Buffy was distracted, utterly focused on Spike, shuddering and tense in her arms. She still clutched one of his hands in hers, high on his chest. With her right she reflexively began to stroke his shoulder.

"Talk to me, Spike," she whispered, not certain but not caring who was watching. "Let it out."

For a moment he seemed to shrink even further into himself, but then he was sobbing against her neck, silent but wracked by hideous tremors. She wondered now, mind still racing after the fight, open and uncontrolled, why she could ever want him to want this. Was this what they had fought for? Before she'd been fighting with Spike, and all of him had been there; this was like a light had gone out, which was funny, since she knew his eyes had probably glowed on the soul's return.

_What now? What now?_

All there was here, in this body that resembled someone she once knew – all there was was pain, a gaping sore of agony pouring out of him and over her. She didn't know what to do.

He was biting her shoulder, blunt teeth digging in reflexively the way his fingernails were almost certainly carving up his palms. With the gentlest of pressures she smoothed a hand along his jaw and his bite loosened, human teeth then clenching against themselves as more tears filled the corners of his squeezed-shut eyes.

"Is that his soul?" someone asked. Was that Anya's voice? _Forgive me._

"I think so," Xander replied.

Buffy couldn't say anything, trying to support the body being torn apart in her arms.

She could only think, was lost in thoughts.

Because… Wasn't this moment supposed to be beautiful?

Weren't souls supposed to be?

The moment never became beautiful, however, only ending when the soul seemed to retreat back to whatever recess was usually its home. Spike's body slowly stilled in her arms, the shudders ceasing, and he awkwardly withdrew from her embrace; she kept one hand loosely on his back as his head remained bowed.

"I guess he got it back then, huh?" Anya asked, leaning more heavily on one leg than the other. Only she and a tired, nervous Xander were in the room; everyone else must have left.

"Yeah," Buffy managed distractedly, not wanting to speak for Spike but not wanting to _make_ him answer. As she watched he seemed to be centring himself and she thought he might still need time. "I took out the – good job, Anya, by the way." She met Anya's eyes, forcing a smile though her guilt was calling her a two-faced bitch inside her head.

Of course, Anya raised her chin and beamed, towards her and then towards Xander, who now looked confused. "I totally saved the day, right?" The question was directed back Buffy's way. "I mean, I know I should have winked or crossed my fingers behind my back or something, but I thought I was about to pee anyhow, so I kinda just hoped you'd work it out. And you did!"

"Huh?" Xander asked, thankfully taking up the response because Buffy could do nothing but smile like she'd stuck to her guns. Instead of shooting them, friendly fire inside her head. "Did you pull some sort of bait and switch?"

"I sure did!" Oh, of course Anya would be so _proud_… Buffy knew she should be sharing in that.

Even Spike seemed to, after all. His words rumbled through his chest before he spoke and she could feel the shaking beneath her hand. "She saved the bloody day," he offered, not without effort, turning his head away from her to address Xander. That would have hurt if she hadn't understood why he couldn't look at her.

"And I'm not even boinking one of the good guys," Anya finished. With a dawning expression of awe, Xander was of course distracted by Anya's statement, and the suddenly very sly look that crossed her face. "Unless…"

Xander gulped, reflexively wiping his palms on his shirt. Buffy couldn't help but smirk. Sometimes it seemed that life, for people who weren't her (or Spike), could be so very easy.

"Uh, Buff, you're OK here, right?" he asked, waving his hands pointlessly as Anya crossed her arms expectantly.

"Go," she said, after a moment's thought about playing with them. "Have fun." They were already moving up the stairs when she added on a reflex, "But not near any impressionable teenagers!"

They didn't seem to hear her; Anya was saying, "I don't think she needed the charade, you know…" And then the basement door shut behind them.

Slowly, the air of the basement settled in their wake, the sound of their footsteps faded to silence that was gradually filled by the hum of the washer and the run of water through the system. Sounded like the full copper re-pipe was still strong and pipey, Buffy thought, though she felt like it almost should have rusted into nothing, what with all the time that had passed since she'd got it. Craftsmanship, that's what it was.

Spike took that moment to sigh, body slumping even further towards his knees, still sat with her on the floor. Feeling the air move out of his lungs, she grew extremely conscious of her hand resting on his back. Was it even doing anything? It felt like she should take it away; she was so bad at comfort these days that the weight felt utterly dead. But she wanted to gesture she was still committed to staying with him. Body language was _hard_.

"It's funny," he said, sounding like it was anything but. "I –" Then he laughed, and she wondered whether it _was_ funny after all, until the dark sound died to hollowness. "How could I forget how much it _hurts_?"

She had no answer, even as he shifted, looking at her now with intense, bloodshot eyes. Her hand slipped from his shoulder. "I honestly thought I'd been making it up," he continued, shaking his head, gaze gone. Though his voice was still wracked and weak he carried on, nearly snarling, "That soulless twat I was, I thought nothing could hurt how I was hurting." With the heels of his palms he scoured the tears from his eyes. "Bloody joke is what it is." The heels became fists. "Bloody – _tosser_…"

"Hey," she said sternly, finding her voice as she closed fingers round his wrists and eased them down to his sides. "Having kind of already done this conversation today, you are _not_ going to sell yourself short."

She should have remembered she was bad at comfort. The tough love had been too tough; he was glaring at her. "And you would know, wouldn't you?" he spat, bitter and furious. "Sorry, I forgot you and soulless Spike were best bloody _mates_."

As he tore his wrists away from her she could only stare, speechless again as he climbed to his feet. _What?_ How could this all be falling apart?

"Don't act all shocked," he told her, snidely, putting distance between them. "You were having a right old time of it, weren't you, flirting away on Terry boy's backseat?"

Her feet were beneath her before she could think about it, firm on the ground. This was not the direction she'd anticipated when the conversation had gone into gear. "What the _hell_ are you talking about?"

He wasn't looking at her. "Don't try and deny it…" Deny _what_? she wanted to ask, but he ploughed on, voice ragged, "Been telling me for months, haven't you, 'don't be such a cry-baby, Spike'; 'give me the Spike who's dangerous, Spike'; 'toss the soul in the trash with last season's shoes, Spike, no need for that old rubbish'? It's – _hardly_ surprising you got a kick out of the old me, tearing up the strip and taking in the scene."

OK, now she wanted to punch him. Out of everything that had happened, _that_ was what he remembered? Her fists were clenched and it was very possible she was going to punch him any moment now. "You… _Dumbass_! How _dare_ you?"

He laughed again, following it with, "How _dare_ I?" For a moment flint-bright eyes struck back on hers, the tension in his jaw like knotted rope. He was in so much pain, she could see that (oh, hell, she could see that), but she had a feeling they were going to have to fight through it. "I'll tell you how I dare;" he continued, "told you once before – _I_ did _everything_ for you. Ripped up everything that meant something to me and played papier-mâché with the pieces. To build _your_ bloody vision of what I should be." His arm stabbed in her direction, not with any melodramatic pointed finger, but she could feel the simulated attack. "And the moment," Forcefully he shut his eyes, before looking at her again. "the _moment_ you get the chance to tell me it meant something to you – anything, I don't bloody care – you tell me it doesn't matter. Tell me I'm a good boy after all." He paused, jaw set against shakes, before continuing, "If that's the case, Buffy, please, tell me, why did I do it? What is the _point_ of this?"

She was more angry than feeling any complete conviction (because had she said that? She didn't remember saying that), but she spat back anyway, deadly serious, "The _point_ is that you wanted it. You wanted to be like this – all insecure and moody and afraid – _you_ wanted to understand what a conscience means, to know why you hated yourself." His silence was stony, telling her that she'd better say something that was good enough. She wished she knew what that was. "The point, the point is that you – told the world to _kiss your ass_! The point is that – " _Without the soul, I'd probably let you down._

She didn't want to say that last one, didn't want to think what it meant that she hadn't managed to trust Anya – not yet anyway. Quickly she tried to distract herself, putting her hands on her hips and jutting out her chin. "And, if there was flirting, it's because I want to flirt with _you_, soul or no soul, and, thank god, you're not my father so where the hell do you get off wagging your finger at me like I'm Floozy McFlirtville?"

For a moment Spike's face was struck completely still, and it was one of those rare, agonising moments when she had no idea how he was going to react. Eventually what he did was squeeze his eyes shut again, exhale a shuddering sigh and shake his head. She had no idea if she'd managed to exorcise any of his pain. "I'm so tired, Buffy," he said. "So tired I can't think straight." It sounded like an apology, even though he wasn't really sorry, not for this, and she knew exactly how he felt. "Rubs me the wrong way that I was in a good mood. That I could appreciate _you_ in a good mood. Dunno why I can't just do that again."

Watching him, she could feel her bones aching in sympathy, her head pounding with the need to rest. More than tired, though, she was frightened – so, so frightened – which was why she knew she had to say it anyway. "I didn't trust Anya," she blurted out, biting her lip but meeting his eyes as he looked up. "Not right to the end. I couldn't do it." What she didn't know, of course, was who she could feasibly blame for that. _Should_ she have been able to trust Anya? "I can't trust Giles; I –" She wanted to, so much. "It's hard to have the energy, no matter what speeches I make. It's hard to give up control of the situation, you know? It saves time, but the idea of just _not_ thinking about something – it takes so much strength."

As she spoke he was watching her, his eyes a startling blue as he stood almost beneath the light. Buffy tried to get to her point. "But you, I can trust you," she said, not letting her voice shake though his lips parted in surprise. "It's – easy; I barely think about it. You keep on proving why I can, all the time. It's selfish, I know –" She looked away then, not able to say the last thing she wanted while still looking at him. "– but that's the reason, that's the reason why I'm so glad you've got your soul back. If you hadn't?" Oh, if he _hadn't_… "I think I would have been scared, in the end. I think I would have let you down."

There was silence for less than two seconds. "Never," he insisted, stepping through the space between them, until she looked up, seeing his soul in his eyes. She hadn't seen it go, and maybe it had always been there, but it was shining for her brightly now.

"I believed her," she confessed, because she could trust him. "Part of me believed she could do it." She couldn't comprehend what it would be like to be soulless, not when she could misjudge things so badly with one. "After _everything_."

"But no harm done, was there?" he soothed, one hand touching her arm. Spike was so good at comfort, unlike her. "We're all in one piece, home again."

Buffy wished it could be true. "In one piece," she repeated with a murmur, leaning closer and watching his chest rise with breath. _Or broken into the splinters you'd barely glued together._ "I can't believe you still fought for your soul – after... Or – no, I can believe it, but it's… It's wow."

"Well," he said, his voice low and wavering, "apparently I wasn't a complete…"

"You were amazing," she promised, looking up into disbelieving eyes. "Understand that. You, standing here, are a you who's done something amazing – twice. Even if you've done other stuff as well, bad stuff, you still did that."

He spent a moment taking in her words, then jerked his head to the side with involuntary modesty. It was strange, seeing him do that; she wondered who had acculturated it in him, because he hadn't been modest for over a hundred-and-twenty years. Maybe it was the guilt, which made him feel like every compliment was undeserved? She hated he could feel like he was nothing.

"You're more amazing every bleeding day," he muttered eventually as reply.

She flushed, perhaps proving _her_ soul was working –

– and then, strangely, she yawned. He blinked at her. The pipes gurgled.

"Oh, I'm tired," she said, slowly and carefully placing her head against his shoulder. The muscle and bone seemed startled to receive her, but held firm.

There was a heart beneath her head, Buffy knew. She couldn't feel it, couldn't sense it separate to the rest of Spike's presence, and he'd probably never really know again where it was until – no, _if_ – someone staked it. But it was there, real as hers, and depending on what belief system you were following it possibly housed his soul. That meant something, that really seemed to mean something, but apart from an ability to speak her language of guilt she wasn't entirely sure what it was.

"Should get upstairs," Spike said eventually, despite not moving. His voice was weighted with sorrow. "Not really space for two down here."

Pausing, she took a breath, then asked, "Do we need much space?"

His face shifted, features growing big and defined in her vision, full of curiosity, and the movement was matched by his hands, rising from his sides to gently touch her back.

She continued in a whisper, "Because I don't think we do…" It was the perfect moment to kiss him, her amazing Spike, so she went with it, her hand rising from his chest to gently guide his jaw, allowing but not meeting any resistance. Exhaustedly her lips caught his; she sighed as they dropped away. With slightly more energy she tried again, feeling his mouth work against hers and the way his body started humming in her hands. Was that his soul that she was feeling now? Did the answering rush of emotion come from her own? It was nice, whatever it was; nice with a promise of good, of superwow amazing, but for another day, when she'd got some sleep – and maybe some coffee.

After a few moments her eyelids turned to lead, and she felt like they were going to stay closed all night unless she opened them. With a final peck to the corner of his mouth she smoothed their cheeks together, nudging her cheekbone under his, then forced her eyes open so she could stare into the gloom.

"Mmm…" he murmured into her hair, hands on her back now openly an embrace as he held her to him. "Don't go upstairs."

"I won't," she replied, because there wasn't any question. "Though you left bloodstains on the wall." The non-sequitur was necessary, she felt, as the smudges blurred in her vision. "I'm gonna have to clean…"

"I'll do it tomorrow," he replied, slightly annoyed even as he nuzzled her cheek, movement sinuous in a measured expression of lust.

It made her eyes drift closed again, arms sliding firmly over his shoulders. Oh, Randy Giles, Buffy thought; he'd got his soul after all. She only hoped it had been worth it.

"Take you out somewhere nice, yeah?" He kept talking, lulling her to sleep though they were still standing up. "Figure we can have fun if we try it; more to the world than demon dimensions."

There _was_ more to the world, more time and ways to understand what he had inside him. "Yeah," she agreed, though it sounded more like _Nnnn_…

He laughed, whole and vibrant against her, and she hoped what she could feel was something special, something _more_. As sleep washed over her, though, she knew it could just be the first glimpse of a dream.

She tried to ask herself whether it mattered, whether maybe the fighting for the soul mattered more than any difference he might feel. Yet, as she slipped into unconsciousness, she didn't have an answer, only love.

Whatever that meant.


End file.
